Abstract:
The TIARA Project is a collaborative, on-line, biological information system for the insects and terrestrial arthropods of the south-central United States and adjacent Mexico. TIARA helps computer scientists develop and deliver fundamental information about the biota of Texas and surrounding regions to researchers, educators, policy makers and the general public through a flexible, interactive, ... web-based, information system.

Because of the magnitude of this task, the TIARA Project is by necessity a highly interdisciplinary activity, utilizing the accumulated knowledge of biologists with diverse taxonomic specializations, data contained in voluminous research collections of biological specimens, and the skills and insights of computer scientists to organize, manipulate, transform and deliver biological information in digital multimedia formats.

The primary geographic focus of the TIARA Project is the south-central United States and adjacent Mexico. Taxa found beyond this focus region, however, are included in the data sets of some collaborators.

The current taxonomic foci of the TIARA Project are insects and terrestrial arthropods. The TIARA Project investigators are actively seeking to collaborate with biologists with other taxonomic specializations. We believe that the greater promise of a general bioinformatics web site lies in its potential to traverse classical biological domains, to stimulate interactions among taxonomically focused biological scientists, and thereby, to facilitate the discovery of new biological knowledge. It is the intent of the TIARA Project to work toward these ends.